The “Georgian Dream” party, which governs the country, received more than 54% of the votes in a parliamentary election on Saturday (26), with more than 99% of districts counted, the electoral commission said on Sunday (27).
The result is a blow to pro-Western Georgians, who had cast the election as a choice between a ruling party that has deepened ties with Russia and an opposition that hoped for quick integration with the European Union.
ISFED, a Georgia-based election monitoring group, said it recorded violations, including voter fraud, voter intimidation and bribery, that could have impacted the results.
The entity also said that it had not seen significant violations in the counting of votes, the majority of which were cast electronically.
The electoral commission and the party did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the allegations, but on Saturday (26) both hailed a free and fair election.
The country’s four main opposition parties have said they do not recognize the results, with one opposition leader calling the results a “constitutional coup.”
But the billionaire and reclusive founder of the “Georgian Dream”, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who had campaigned hard to keep Georgia out of the war in Ukraine, claimed success on Saturday night (26), with his party putting its best foot forward. performance since 2012, thanks to huge margins of up to 90% in some rural areas.
“It is a rare case in the world that the same party achieves so much success in such a difficult situation – this is a good indicator of the talent of the Georgian people,” Ivanishvili told supporters on Saturday night (26).
Ivanishvili’s “Georgian Dream” says he wants Georgia to join the European Union, although Brussels says the country’s membership application is frozen because of what the bloc describes as the party’s authoritarian tendencies.
An EU official told Reuters there was “a sense of disappointment” about the opposition’s performance, but Brussels was concerned a disputed result would lead to a stalemate.
A local monitoring organization called for the results to be annulled, based on reports of intimidation and vote buying, but did not immediately provide evidence of large-scale falsification.
Last week, Moldova voted narrowly to approve its membership of the European Union in a vote that Moldovan officials said was marred by Russian interference.
This content was originally published in Ruling party wins election in Georgia, according to vote counts on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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